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My experiences of using the new WebSphere MQ V8

My work so far at IBM has been to provide consultation to clients in WebSphere MQ. This month I’m using new MQ features as part of an IBM Redbooks publication residency. My contribution is to write a chapter specifically about how publish/subscribe networks can be applied.

During my time in Hursley, UK, I have had the opportunity of being in touch with MQ experts. My experience with the new version of the WebSphere MQ product has been great; it has enhancements that I have tested and that will be explained in detail in the next IBM Redbooks publication for WebSphere MQ V8 Enhancements. Some of those enhancements provide speed and performance benefits when creating instances of objects and starting services.

For users who have previously administered WebSphere MQ performing queue manager creation and start up, they will notice that, in this version, those actions are the same as for previous versions. That is a good indication that many of the previous features remain the same in V8 but with enhancements that are the result of customer suggestions and needs. For example, it’s like having an engine and gearbox upgrade in a car; same familiar car, but it’s the way that it feels: the increased power and speed. It’s the same in WebSphere MQ and users will see an immediate benefit; this is a powerful, reliable, and innovated version.

I noticed those advantages having spent many days here building a publish/subscribe scenario, which describes features related to the new topic host routing feature. I am creating a scenario that shows a practical example to explain how a queue manager is responsible for hosting a network configuration and routing publications from a cluster member. The publisher generates the publication and that message goes to the queue manager members in the cluster where the subscriptions live. All this communication occurs based on topic trees, topic objects, and other topic-related functions.

In this new version, it is possible to display, and also modify, the way in which messages are routed in a cluster. This approach is possible to achieve without stopping the server. A nice feature is that this action can be done using the command line. However, even better, this action can also be done using the graphical interface.

Here are some of the parameters that you can configure:

CLROUTE parameter – Provides the behavior of “direct” or “topic host” routing as seen in following two figures:

Figure 1. Display of CLROUTE from the MQSC command line

Figure 2. Display of the cluster route from the MQ Explorer GUI

CLSTATE parameter – Shows the current topic state in the cluster as seen in following two figures:

Figure 3. Display of CLSTATE using the MQSC command line

Figure 4. Display of CLSTATE using MQ Explorer GUI

Version parameter – Shows the WebSphere MQ version from the cluster-sender channels tab in the queue manager view as seen in following figure:

Figure 5. MQ version from a cluster-sender channel detail

WebSphere MQ V8.0 provides some easier ways for showing useful information. As an example, you can find out from a queue manager command line or graphical interface how many subscriptions there are by looking at the SUBCOUNT value, and the number of topic nodes that exists in the topic tree from the TPCOUNT value. See the following figure:

Figure 6. Display of MQ publish/subscribe status details

WebSphere MQ publish/subscribe now provides the capability of configuring multiple queue managers connected in a distributed network. Thereby, allowing a business solution that can be expanded as much as needed.

My visit to the Winchester Science Centre “Astrium” planetarium reminded me of publish/subscribe in this respect. The granularity and the expansion of universe is infinite and, in WebSphere MQ, a business model can grow in much the same way by implementing topologies that are introduced in this version. All you need to understand is how to use some of the commands and configurations. You can find that out by reading the forthcoming IBM MQ V8 Features and Enhancements IBM Redbooks publication.

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Hi Jonatan - great to see the redbook blogs getting published now!
I wonder if you could make one small tweak? Could you make the text
"IBM MQ V8 Features and Enhancements" into a link to the redbook
here http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248218.html then
people can go straight to it. Thanks!